Newly minted Democratic front-runner Tom Wolf sat down with the editorial board of our sister paper The York Daily Record. I was on a conference call for the session and was live-tweeting.
Wolf, a York County self-made man and millionaire, has surged to a commanding lead in the crowded Democratic field looking to take on incumbent Republican Gov. Tom Corbett, largely on a huge splash he made with a wave of TV commercials to introduce himself to the state.
That's what happens when you spend $10 million of your own money on the campaign. As they say, money talks.
But yesterday it was Wolf the candidate who was talking.
And he said a lot of things I liked. You can see for yourself here.
He defended using his wealth to fund his campaign, at the same time pointing out the need for campaign finance reform.
He said voters are looking for a difference, and cited this week's upset win by write-in candidate Scott Wagner in a state Senate race that stunned the local GOP.
He touched on the crucial issue of education funding, which has been the focus of a year-long series of editorials in our newspaper that we are calling The Keystones, Education Funding and Property Taxes. Wolf maintained he favored a push back toward a 50-50 split between local and state funding, while saying he was not yet ready to support elimination of the property tax.
But it was toward the end of the session, he said something that really made my ears perk up.
He was talking about President Obama's Affordable Care Act, and the repercussions here in Pennsylvania since Gov. Corbett decided not to set up exchanges under the program.
"The Affordable Care Act is not perfect, but it's a step in the right direction," the candidate said in response to a question.
A light bulb went off above my head as soon as the words escaped his mouth.
I figured Republicans, who are looking for a way to derail what looks like a Wolf locomotive, would seize on the comment.
It didn't take long for the email to show up in my inbox from the state Republican Party.
"Today, Tom Wolf stated that a law that cost 250,000 Pennsylvanians their health care coverage is “a step in the right direction,” said the directive from Megan Sweeney, communications director of the state Republican Party.
"Perhaps Tom Wolf was too busy calling for new taxes on energy to notice how ObamaCare is hurting small businesses, driving up health care costs for our local governments, and costing families their doctors.
"Tom Wolf’s statement that ObamaCare was a step in the right direction just proves that he would have voted for the law and he would rubberstamp its disastrous effects that would lead to more health care insecurity for Pennsylvanians."
Consider the battle joined.
Of course, Wolf has not even won the Democratic nomination as yet.
But Wolf opened the door and the Republicans wasted no time barging through it.
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